Civil War in Reagan Country

This line is definitely not moving. It stretches down the block, a crowd of fans and the curious here to see Arnold Schwarzenegger, muscleman and movie star, and the season's great Teutonic hope for the California Republican Party. They haven't twigged that virtually none of them will get past the doors at the actor's Santa Monica volunteer headquarters. And now they're getting restless, pressing against the storefront windows, knocking against the glass, watching anxiously for the candidate's grand entrance with a very special surprise guest.

For now, they'll have to be content with the bootleg Arnold t-shirts and buttons being sold on the sidewalk. Inside, a smaller gathering of media and loyal volunteers press against a small stage surrounded by large photographs of Arnold the Republican fitness and education action hero: posing with an American flag, posing at the Special Olympics, posing beside a young student at a computer. Just like a real politician.

Right up front is Pati Miller, committed volunteer, a wife and mother living large along the canals in Venice, an ex-Democrat now "grown up" at 52. Her 10-year-old son plays football with Schwarzenegger's boy, and she's talked with the candidate from time to time. But that's not why she is here this morning, proselytizing even now to the women around her.

"We know he's not going to be bought off," she tells them, a "Join Arnold" button on her white Izod polo shirt. "He has his own money. You are his special interest."

The day before, she was in downtown L.A., watching as ex-candidate Bill Simon endorsed Schwarzenegger. Mrs. Miller is a believer, even if her assurances that Arnold is financially independent-a true outsider!-ignore the $5,683,959 in contributions (above and beyond $6 million of his own money) he's collected for the campaign as of Sept. 29. He is already spending $2 million a week on advertising, which seems to be paying off.

The newest polling finds the celebrity on the rise, particularly since his single debate appearance on Sept. 24, seemingly on the road to returning the statehouse to Republican control. Which is where it had been for nearly two decades under Governors Deukmejian and Wilson, before the party became unglued over taxes, abortion and Clinton. Even now, the race to recall and replace Democratic Gov. Gray Davis once again reveals a Republican Party split and embittered over ideological lines.

So this is an important event this morning, as Schwarzenegger finally marches to the podium, joined by Congressman Darrell Issa, who personally bankrolled the statewide petition drive to recall Davis. He had also hoped to replace him. Now he is a supporting player on Arnold's stage. "Darrell has been a great man," Schwarzenegger says. "He has been a uniter and, at the same time, a fantastic friend who is going to be by my side all the way to October 7."

And soon they are gone, exiting to the screeching pop metal of "We're Not Going to Take It" by Twisted Sister.

Standing beside the stage is Ron Nehring, president of the California Republican County Chairmen's Association, which has just announced its endorsement of Schwarzenegger. It is the group's first-ever endorsement.

"We want to have a decisive victory in the governor's election because we have to send a signal to the Legislature that it's not going to be business as usual in California anymore," Nehring says. "A united Republican Party stands the greatest chance of achieving that decisive victory."

This was a not-very-subtle hint that State Sen. Tom McClintock should do the same. To stand firm with the Terminator. But the Thousand Oaks Republican has promised not to quit the race, committed to stand for the once-dominant conservative wing of his party. His mantra: Cut taxes and then cut them again. Both major parties are wounded by internal strife and self-destructive feuds. Cruz vs. Gray, McClintock vs. Schwarzenegger, with little love or contact between them. But Democrats at least have been winning and dominating elections since the Clinton '90s. If Arnold or any other Republican succeeds in the recall, it will reverse an anti-Republican trend that looked impenetrable just a few months ago.

Though California was once a Republican dynasty-two terms with George Deukmejian, the same with Pete Wilson-the GOP now lacks a single major statewide office, unless you count one seat on the state board of equalization. No one in power to greet President Bush at the airport. Reagan Country surrendered.

Republican money remains plentiful in the home state of Reagan and Nixon, and George W. Bush is a frequent visitor, stepping off of Air Force One just long enough to pick up the check at another million-dollar fundraising dinner. But the leadership needed to turn those resources into votes for exalted state office somehow vanished, leaving a party hopelessly addled and confused, at war with itself.

They curse Davis for spending $10 million on negative ads against Richard Riordan during the GOP primary last year, leading to the nomination of Simon, a far weaker opponent. It was an underhanded and effective move, but if the Republican faithful are so easily duped into embracing the wrong candidate, it suggests deeper issues than can be explained by Davis alone. California Republicans are now little more than the loyal opposition, piously committed to the conservative plan, the dependable gadfly to the Democratic leadership. Unless Arnold pulls off a Hollywood miracle.

Things began to go wrong for California Republicans in the early '90s, when conservatives revolted against tax increases supported by then-Gov. Wilson, who once referred to the troublesome right wing of his party as "neanderthals." McClintock and other conservatives still talk of the episode as a rallying point, drawing little distinction between the crimes of Wilson and Davis. That break also happened to coincide with the popular presidency of Bill Clinton and a shift in the state electorate, which now has 44 percent of voters registered as Democrats (versus 36 percent for Republicans).

"The Republicans have only themselves to blame," says former State Sen. Cathie Wright, a Republican whose old 19th District seat is now held by McClintock. "Hard-core conservatives want it all or nothing, and they got nothing."

The recall of Gov. Davis was to be its doomsday device, a short-term solution to the insoluble problem that could either reverse a decade of humiliation or send the party deep into irrelevance. To Democrats, it was just another right-wing conspiracy, like Bush v. Gore or the Clinton impeachment. But the anti-Davis outrage is genuine. It is there that the recall began, a Quixotic signature-drive launched by Sacramento gadfly Ted Costa, before it was turned into a big-money operation by millionaire Congressman Issa. This is no conspiracy. It is a crusade.

"There is such a visceral hate-especially among the activists-for Gray Davis," says San Diego Republican consultant Scott Barnett. "He is not liked and he is an awful governor." Barnett understands those feelings, but he was also alarmed enough by the dangerous precedent of a recall that he founded Republicans Against the Recall to warn party members away from a tempting but short-term solution to Davis.

"Part of the problem of our party has been that no one has looked beyond next week, to the implications to our party, our state and our system," he says. Barnett also worries that a Cruz Bustamante victory could lock up the governor's mansion for another eight years and stall the Bush Administration's successful efforts to draw more Latinos into California's Republican Party.

For his part, Schwarzenegger has proven resilient. He's survived criticism for vague stands on issues and for not participating in debates, trotting his campaign from Leno to Stern to Oprah, as campaign aides quoted "hasta la vista" as if it were a policy statement. Today he is considered the front-runner. Not all Republicans are enthralled. The party elite may have anointed the movie star, clinging to his vague commitment to Republican values and raw name recognition. But the conservative core has other ideas.

Go, Seabiscuit

At a weekend fundraising lunch in the suburban foothills of La Canada, Tom McClintock looks like a man convinced he is about to win an election. As he waits to step onto a small stage on the lawn of a large, private home, well-wishers shake his hand.

"You got me hooked," one middle-aged man says, catching his breath. "I didn't know you until a few months ago."

Nearby, a country & western quartet is playing "Okie from Muskogee" and "Make the World Go Away."

When he finally makes it to the stage, McClintock is defiant and direct, practically formal in a black suit and red tie. Behind him, a banner reads: "Go Tom Go." As always, he compares his race to the unlikely victory of Seabiscuit. "Clearly, this message is resonating with the electorate of California," he declares. "All of the momentum of this campaign has been on my side."

His refusal to quit has been recognized and championed by a growing chorus of national conservative groups. Just the day before, McClintock was in Colorado Springs, Colo., enjoying a fundraising benefit by the likes of Christian conservative Gary Bauer. This afternoon, he has to settle for an endorsement message sent from ancient L.A. broadcaster George Putnam, a newsman and commentator from the Dragnet era. The candidate insists, "We will win this on election day."

After 17 years in office, McClintock now spends most of his time in Sacramento. He won his first assembly seat at age 26, and despite a thin record of legislative accomplishments, his success with true believers taps into real frustration with a party's attempted drift toward the middle. Commentator and 1992 U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Herschensohn calls himself a fan of Schwarzenegger, but he's endorsed McClintock and is disappointed that more conservatives have not stood with him.

"I'm a Republican because I have particular principles," says Herschensohn, now a foreign-policy professor at Pepperdine University. "If we abandon those principles in order to win, in a sense victory becomes a disguise for surrender."

Even Barnett, of Republicans Against the Recall, is drawn more towards a McClintock candidacy, though his group is endorsing only a "No" vote for the recall itself. He considers himself more moderate on social issues than McClintock, but finds commonality on crucial fiscal issues. "We certainly know we will never ever, ever, ever have any kind of tax increase if he's elected governor," he laughs. "And we will cut the budget significantly."

An arch-conservative libertarian might still have a chance in this state, but Wright is convinced that McClintock would be no savior, even if elected. "McClintock has been a loner all his life," Wright says. "How is he going to work with a Democratic-controlled Senate and Assembly? He's made no friends. The leader of his own Republican caucus in the Senate has endorsed against him. That should tell you something."

She remembers a meeting back in the late '90s, when she was still a state senator and McClintock was in the Assembly. He was pushing a bill with all the political finesse of a commando, a hard-headed moment Wright says was typical.

"He makes an appointment and he comes into my office and basically tells me that I have no choice, that I have to vote for it," she says now. "I personally felt that it needed an amendment. He's not willing to work with the committee. So he doesn't get his bill."

This is not a party without leaders who might appeal to the mysterious middle. Consider former L.A. Mayor Riordan, who had polled higher than both Davis and even Schwarzenegger early on. Or Peter Ueberroth, who emerged as a potential Republican star after leading the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles to profit and popularity. Time magazine made him "Man of the Year." And he had been talked about as a possible candidate for governor or U.S. Senator ever since. Until the recall.

Wall Street and others watched with interest, but Ueberroth's performance at the first debate in Walnut Creek was not spectacular, though it at least showed a businesslike seriousness, focused on what he described as fiscal devastation. "Voters don't want to know how I feel about the death penalty," he said during the debate, before bringing things back again to fiscal issues.

Maybe Ueberroth represents old Orange County: a quietly conservative businessman, culturally moderate, deifying entrepreneurs, politely cursing taxes, but not the type about to march on abortion clinics. A competent presence, but not a comfort to the right. At a Sept. 6 campaign event in Glendale, he announced that he was on the verge of unleashing his TV campaign, which was set to remind voters of his success at the Olympics, as baseball commissioner, as a businessman.

He stood on a royal blue stage, looking like a man about to deliver a Fortune 500 annual report, speaking in the tone of an amiable econ professor. He was also a bearer of bad news, declaring that the outlook for education funds were "very dim. There isn't enough to go around." He simultaneously praised both Reagan and the late Democratic Mayor Tom Bradley, and he promised to do better at the next debate. Two days later he was out. Moderate, go home.

Even if Schwarzenegger wins the election, and immediately takes office later this month, it may open a door to a renewed state party. Or it could just become another very public battleground between Republican moderates and conservatives, dooming the party's prospects for re-election in 2006. But for some Republicans, that fight is more important than compromise.

They are not interested in voting strategically for Arnold or anyone else. "Don't surrender a philosophy," argues Herschensohn. "I'm old enough to remember the Barry Goldwater defeat [for president] in 1964. But we stuck to our guns. Everyone was saying that the Republicans are dead, certainly conservatism was dead. Well, in the next election, Nixon won, and then Reagan won. If you focus so much on your own time, on the calendar of today, you don't look to the future. And if you continually bend your principles to win, the victory isn't worth having."